Bond vs Wick Review
Table of Contents
Bond Rundown
The Name Game
Trying to cram all Bond film titles into the episode was a very Swank thing to do. Not only did it make an episode that was Bond-sided from the material (several decades of media vs three films) to the music feel even more Bond-sided, but I think they missed Dr. No and For Your Eyes Only, though as a weird non-Eon film, it’s somewhat excusable that they left it out.
The OG Action Hero
I didn’t like how they called Bond the OG action hero, because he really isn’t. He’s predated by a lot of cinema action stars if that’s what Swank meant by “OG action hero.” Zorro, for instance, hit theaters in 1920 when Ian Fleming, Bond’s creator and writer, was 12 years old, and even got a sequel in Don Q, Son of Zorro in 1925, so you can’t even argue that Bond was the first cinema action star with sequels.
I know Swank likes to use hyperbole in his writing and then forget hyperbole exists when analyzing characters, but he needs to make an effort when talking about major pop culture characters with decades of easy-to-look-up history.
Bond’s Influences
Saying that Bond was based on Hoagy Carmichael is a little misleading. It would be more accurate to say that Bond was visually based on Hoagy Carmichael
Fleming created Bond from a variety of sources, and its a pity Death Battle doesn’t list them, because they’re interesting.
Bond’s name came from the author of Birds of the West Indies, a book which Fleming, a fan of ornithology, liked to read at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica. Bond’s personality was based on Porfirio Rubirosa Dominican diplomat and playboy, and on Fleming himself who was an officer in the Royal Navy’s Naval Intelligence Department. Fleming was, in a way, a real-life spy and knew Christopher Lee who, as part of his very colorful life, was SAS. Lee and Fleming were step-cousins and friends, so it’s likely that Lee had a little bit of an influence on Bond too.
While Lee would never play Bond, he did play Francisco Scaramanga, Bond’s enemy in The Man with the Golden Gun, and had a lot of fun doing so.
I’m sure if Swank had tried he could have done something like:
Appearance based on Hoagy Carmichael.
Personality based on Porfiro Rubirosa, Ian Fleming, Christopher Lee.
A little forethought is all I’m asking.
Bond’s Foes
I’m surprised Swank didn’t mention evil billionaires in the rundown of Bond foes. I think he ends up fighting them more often than commies. I think he ends up fighting them more often than SPECTRE. There’s Goldfinger, Max Zorin, Scaramanga, Karl Stromberg, Hugo Drax, and Eliot Carver. I would have included Mr. Big but he was more like a crime boss instead of an eccentric billionaire with a colorful scheme.
My point is, the evil billionaire faction has a pretty significant presence throughout the films.
He’s Been Rebooted Countless Times
Uh, no.
There’s the book continuity, the Eon film continuity, and the rebooted Craig timeline.
That’s it. Three very easy to follow continuities.
Relatively speaking.
I know that the particulars of the Eon timeline aren’t the easiest to follow and have to dip into sliding timeline stuff to make any since at all, but it’s like Marvel comics. Somehow, the Spidey from the 60’s is the same Spidey in the present. It just works. The same Bond from Dr. No is the same Bond from Die Another Day. The only reboot is with the Craig timeline, and before nu-Blofeld and nu-SPECTRE people speculated that it might still somehow fit with the other films.
My point is, saying Bond “has been rebooted countless times” is simply not accurate. Superman has been rebooted countless times. Batman has been rebooted countless times. Bond was rebooted once, and recently at that, and only twice if you count adapting from book-to-film as a reboot, which you shouldn’t, because otherwise all comic films are “reboots.”
Black Box 1
If Craig Bond isn’t so different that the scales change by including him with the others, why use him at all?
Why use him at all?
It’s like compositing the DCEU Superman with Post-Crisis/Rebirth. Why do it? Why not stick with the comics?
Why not stick with the Eon films and use Connery or Moore as the face for Bond?
The fact is, the Craig Bond is a different man from the Eon Bond. Having him pull out Eon gadgets and talk to the old Eon Q in the fight is weird. It’s weird like how showing the Fleisher cartoon Superman and having him talk about how his dad committed suicide in front of his eyes would be weird.
Bond Plays Domination
So the Never Say Never Again Bond is also in the composite?
Well…was James Bond Jr. also in the composite? Because that’s about as far from continuity as Never Say Never Again is.
Calvin Dyson goes into the weirdness that is Never Say Never Again here.
Goshinkwai
Why spend so much time speculating on Bond’s fighting style? For every action hero worth a damn, their fighting style is “all.” Like real-life martial artists, they sample a variety of fighting styles to create their own that is spontaneous, reflexive, and unpredictable. Though real-life fighters may favor one style over another, no one strictly sticks to a single style like a robot. Bond’s fighting style is all. Wick’s fighting style is all. Batman’s fighting style is all plus weird stuff he picked up from his superhuman pals.
I don’t understand why they looked at Bond’s eclectic martial arts background and decided to boil it down to Goshinkwai. I don’t think there’s a single source that even says 007 practiced Goshinkwai. This is fanfiction.
I especially don’t understand why they insisted on wasting time on Goshinkwai fanfiction when they could have talked about how Bond became a ninja master after studying at Tiger Tanaka’s secret castle fort in You Only Live Twice.
I think that would have been something a little cooler to mention.
Q Gadgets
…Was it really necessary to give Bond video game gadgets?
The movie stuff like the laser watch from Goldenye, the bullet deflector watch from Live and Let Die (surprised they didn’t even mention that one), and the rocket cig from You Only Live Twice was plenty. Did they really need to bring in X-ray vision, attack drones, stealth nano-armor, and homing rockets? The games just make the fight so unfair.
Video game Bond takes a jetpack up and spams rockets until Wick dies. How is that even remotely fair?
Also, nitpick here–the rocket cig wasn’t made by Q. It was made by Tiger Tanaka.
The Aston Martin
Christ, they gave Bond his car to?
Here I thought it was going to be excluded like how they excluded Jason’s zord.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the Aston was ever fitted with a remote control. The only remote control car I think Bond had was the BMW from Tomorrow Never Dies.
I get why they subbed out the BMW for the Aston. The Aston is Bond’s signature. And the BMW fired rockets. That would have made things even more stacked against Wick, and Wick’s scale is already digging through the floor.
Bond’s Feats
Nothing on Bond swimming against a fan from View to a Kill? I thought for sure that would get in. Or Bond fighting a guy in electrical power armor in Die Another Day and shrugging off electrocution, why wasn’t that in?
I’m surprised, but I’m even more surprised Bond’s feats are in general kind of glossed over. His best stuff comes from throwing down with Jaws and Oddjob, and they don’t say a thing about how Oddjob can break metal bars in half with his bare hands. And the only thing they say about Jaws is that he once lifted a car, which doesn’t even begin to describe the insane superhuman cartoon stuff he’s done. The dude faceplanted a circus tent from terminal velocity and walked it off. He tore a truck apart with his bare hands. He was attacked by a shark and bit the shark to death.
No calcs for that? No calcs for –any– of that? Death Battle is usually calc-happy. I thought they would have loved going into how much force Bond resisted in Moonraker when he endured 32 Gs in a cyclotron.
I think Swank envisioned this fight as Bond’s gadgets and guile against Wick’s mildly superhuman stats, but when they did the math behind the scenes they found that Bond was way above whatever Wick breaking bulletproof glass gave him. That would explain why the feats section is so underdeveloped and underexplained.
Why flash names of people Bond fought on screen without elaborating? Red Grant was a highly trained SMERSH and SPECTRE agent created to be the perfect Bond killer. Gustav Graves wore power armor. And Safin and Le Chiffre…wait, why the hell are they even here?
Why mention them? They don’t come anywhere near the top of Bond’s henchmen foes.
Safin and Le Chiffre got a mention over Scaramanga, over Mr. Hinx, over the diamond dude that couldn’t feel pain from Die Another Day?
What were they thinking?
Wick Rundown
Well…I don’t have much to say here. Wick having only three films means there wasn’t as much of a chance of Death Battle screwing up.
I do want to point out how Swank gives way more attention to Wick breaking bulletproof glass than to any of Bond’s physical feats that would make him stronger. He thinks he’s clever, hiding information from the audience in the hopes of making the winner a surprise.
He is not clever.
The Fight
Overall, the choreography was above average but dragged down by below average, Gmod graphics. I’m sure we’ve all seen the gif of Bond gliding over to the bar like he’s on heelies.
As a Bond fan, its so weird hearing old Q from the Eon films talk to Craig Bond. It’s like if they had Professor Potter phone call Superbro.
I was worried about Bond’s personality going by the preview. “What can I get you, mate? (shoulder poke) Drinks are on me!” is something even the Moore Bond wouldn’t say. It felt like an Archer line. But his personality improves dramatically once they actually start shooting at each other.
It was distracting how empty the bar and casino were. We hear some stock screams when they start fighting but don’t see anyone running away. Even a few low-quality sprites would have gone a long way to making the fight look like its taking place in a public area and not an abandoned sound stage.
But I have to wonder–what on Earth is Wick’s phone made out of?
The banter between them isn’t the sharpest.
“What does MI6 want with me?”
“Your reputation precedes you. I’ll be sure to keep up.”
“No. You won’t.”
It would have been nice for Bond to have actually answered the question. Maybe Wick iced some informants during his rampage? Maybe they don’t trust that he’ll go back to retirement after he killed 300-something people? We rarely get a break in a death battle where the characters just talk and its a shame Swank didn’t capitalize on it happening here.
The wrestling match is good. I like how Swank sets up the laser watch, because it’s going to come in greater use later and Bond being manhandled by a physically superior opponent as he struggles to find a way to turn the tables is classic Bond. See his fights with Oddjob, Hinx, Jaws, Teehee, etc.
Sure, on paper, Bond is physically superior, but making a good fight involves bending the rules Look back to Voltron vs Power Rangers. There’s no way the Megazord would have manhandled Voltron like that, but it worked in terms of “fight logic.” The Megazord was bigger and stronger, but Voltron had more gadgets and powers. That sort of contrast created an interesting fight back then and it creates an interesting fight now.
I didn’t like how the pen was used. Having Wick go for it and try to stab Bond with it works, because its a moment that’s true to Wick’s “use everything in the environment to kill my enemies” character and Bond’s “everything I carry is a secret weapon” character. But then having them both stop and stare at each other when the pen flies away with Bond saying “I lost count myself” is cringe.
Wick doesn’t know its a bomb and Bond is virtually speaking to the audience. It ruins the momentum of the fight and the seriousness of a bomb being in play.
What I would have done would have had the pen go off in Wick’s hand, forcing him to fight one-handed for the rest of the fight, or Bond thinks its about to go off in Wick’s hand only for Wick to throw it. It then gets embedded in the wall and blows it up, opening the next “arena” for the fight to flow into.
The Aston scene was great. I really do like it. I think its probably the best scene we’ve had this season. It’s also classic Bond. Bond brings out an advantage, the advantage is taken away, and he has to figure out how to get his advantage back.
Bond losing ground against Wick as the Marin rotates and strafes the arena is great, and like with the watch sets up the ending.
It was weird how Wick just…absorbed the machine gun fire by holding up his arms like he was blocking in a fighting game. Bulletproof super-jacket or not, he should have reacted a little more than “not at all” to two machine guns strafing his upper body.
And it was very weird how Bond’s Walther was able to then punch through this armor the very next second not one, not twice, but three times. Exploding bullets or not, Wick just brought his hands up and took 0 damage from twin machine guns.
Good on Swank for resisting the urge of making the scope sequence the final kill.
The kill was good. I’d even go so far as to say it’s the best kill this season so far. The laser watch and car were set up, and given how Wick is running on pure adrenaline it makes since he would forget about the guns rotating behind him.
And the closing quip? Not the best, but let’s be real here, with Swank writing we’re lucky we didn’t get “Oh, no I’m the one that needs the pint! (laugh track)”
I give it a 6/10. Would be a 7/10, or even an 8/10 if they had someone competent doing the animation.
The Post-fight
Bullet-timing Bond
“In this one comic, a guy missed shooting at Bond, so James Bond can move faster than bullets!”
Swank, no, just no.
Black Box 2
“Though they are likely outliers, Bond has dodged electricity from Gustav Graves in Goldeneye 007: Reloaded, as well as laser beams in The Man With the Golden Gun and Moonraker.”
…Okay. First of all, Gustav Graves wasn’t in Goldeneye 007: Reloaded. He was in 007 Legends.
Look, I know the staff only pretends to be fans of the stuff they talk about because they’re trapped doing a job they hate but blew their education on liberal arts degrees so they either keep making battles for Warner Bros. until the end of time or scrub floors, but the clue is in the titles. Why would lightning-blasting bad guy from Die Another Day show up in the Goldeneye remake? What, did you think he was part of the cameos in multiplayer mode? How do you think they worked sith lightning into multiplayer, smart guys?
Second, let’s take a look at Gustav Graves. I know, faster-than-light Bond is wayyyyy more cringe than faster-than-lightning Bond, but let’s build up to it.
Here is the fight. It’s at 2:13.
Assume that we’re brain-damaged enough to assume the movie lightning moves as fast as irl lightning. Even if we do, Bond is juking out of the way before Gustav punches forward and shoots a ball of electricity. The gauntlet even makes a little “move out of the way now” click noise before firing. Bond is clearly not shifting into a 270,000 mph dash. What, is the click supposed to be faster than sound to? Use your brains, Death Battle!
Amusingly, this makes Bond’s little shoulder charges several thousand times faster than his cars.
Swank doesn’t see anything wrong with this because Swank’s brain doesn’t work like the brains of normal people. We have plenty of evidence now to say that it’s not mere speculation, but very likely fact.
For The Man With The Golden Gun, I’m honestly not sure what scene they’re talking about. They’re clearly talking about the solex agitator, because its the only laser in the film, but I don’t think Bond ever dodged it. Scaramanga used it to blow up Bond’s plane and then when Bond retrieved the power core there was a laser. Did they interpret 1:45 to be a “laser dodge?” Why? Maybe they thought Bond taking the solex agitator out of the machine before the beam dropped down was a “laser dodge” at 3:23? But the intent of the scene is clearly that Bond got the agitator out at the nick (knack) of time, not that he suddenly propelled his hands to warp 1.
“But we can see the laser move with our eyes, that means the film makers wanted to slow down the laser so that we can see Bond use his special power to move millions of times faster than his cars that is never commented on or explained by the film.”
No, you speds! You’re looking at a special effect from the 70’s!
Now let’s look at the laser fight from Moonraker.
Now, you and me, dear reader, can look at this scene and not come to the conclusion that the characters are not being depicted as swiveling their bodies at 670,000,000 mph to dodge beams moving at the speed of light.
That’s because we think like normal people.
Swank does not.
He sees this scene and thinks to himself “Wow! Jaws, Bond, Dr. Goodhead, the generic CIA astronauts, and all of Hugo Drax’s henchmen are able to move faster than light!”
Swank believes that Jaws is faster than video game Sonic and Alucard. I just want to put that out there.
Just imagine how Swank acts when he sits down to watch movies with his friends–assuming he has any that aren’t paid to tolerate his horrible opinions on pop culture.
His friends watch the scene from Moonraker and go “Ha that was funny! Did you see the lasers that were disconnected dashes of colored energy and made noise when fired? Good thing they didn’t use real lasers or those astronauts wouldn’t be able to slowly bob out of the way!”
And then Swank goes “Actually, everyone in Moonraker is able to move faster than light! It’s a special power action heroes have that only us Death Battle researchers are smart enough to know about, don’t be ashamed that you don’t know about it. In fact, most fictional characters can move faster than light, but only to perform a reflex dodge against a projectile and only for about three feet. This is a secret power known only to writers and Death Battle researchers! (Jojo poses) I get paid for this!”
I’m sure some of you are thinking “But Otto, they said they were outliers!”
No. An outlier is when a character does something far beyond their usual capabilities.
If James Bond suddenly punched Jaws into the sun, that would be an outlier.
What we have here are not outliers, because it’s only in Swank’s twisted mind that the characters move faster than Bond’s cars. What Swank thinks happens doesn’t actually happen on screen. It’s fanfic. It’s BS.
The only outlier here is Swank’s brain being an outlier from the general populace. “Non-neurotypical” is what they call it nowadays.
Autism speaks, and now it’s way past time for autism to shut up and sit down. Death Battle needs to hire an editor or a wrangler.
Discussion ¬